The Steel Guitar Forum

I play a Rains SD-10 that Gary built in 2009. Love the guitar. Not quite satisfied with the sound. Yeah, yeah, I know that the sound is in my hands, but I need (want) a little "helping hand" here. Looks like it currently has a Lawrence 500 in it (but the "cheap" version. Rains owners......what pickup are you using to get "that sound" that you have always wanted. Playing through PV NV112, Lexicon, Hilton Volume Pedal. Thoughts please!!! JV

Gary puts the BL 705s in his guitars when built but i cant comment on how they sound cause ive never had one in my Rains, ive had other PUs in mine and the one i found to my liking is the Telonics 206, very clean sound and the seperation of notes is amazing and really brings out the natural growl of these guitars, to say the least im very satisfied with what im getting. Telonics make other models but i settled on the 206 cause i like the plug and play, to much ajusting on the others. JMPO

Don't know what the stock pickups are but my SD-10 has a single coil that has a nice tone but after I hooked up the black box it developed a strong single coil hum. No problem with my Fessy with a Lawrence HB pickup hooked up through the black box.

Tonealigner

Jerry Wallace True Tone!!!

I'm with Ransom.
My Rains all have Jerry Wallace TruTones in them.

I am not familiar with the Rains but I think that the George L 10-5 pickups are very versatile. There are some really nice sounds from the 6 position switch, plus many more if you want to wire up your own linkages. (I like the option of having the two coils wired in parallel for a clearer humbucking sound.) The stock switch is really cool as shipped, and offers 2 single coil sounds, 2 humbucking sounds and 2 linkages that I think George L might have invented.

If single coil noise is a problem I think that the GL 10-5 is a good choice.

Steve Ahola

P.S. If anyone is interested in the alternate wirings for the 10-5 send me a PM. I wired up one steel with two push-pull pots to give me 4 of my favorite linkages since there wasn't room for the 6 position rotary switch.

I have had the E-66, 10-1, TruTone and now a Telonics 84PW PUP in my Rains and the Telonics rains supreme in my opinion.

Marlin:

I had never heard of Telonics Pro Audio but their line of pickups looks very interesting!

http://www.tpa-az.com/

Here are some articles from their site on their steel guitar pickups:

http://www.tpa-az.com/downloads/Pickups ... 110411.pdf

http://www.tpa-az.com/downloads/Pickups ... 120611.pdf

Thanks for the heads up!

Steve Ahola

P.S. Their preamps look very interesting, too. Dave Beatty is really pushing the envelope for steel guitar pickups and electronics!

I have Tim's other Rains (the one without the Tone Aligners), and the Trutones sound damn near perfect.

Jim
Check out Steve Lipsey's thread on Pedal Steel:

http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=224326

BL 710's

Gary put the BL 705's in mine sounds great I love my Rains